SMITH BULLIES WADE TO MAKE FINAL
‘I need the cash!’
MICHAEL SMITH rampaged into his second PDC World Championship final like a Bully Boy in a china shop and admitted: “I can’t afford to lose.”
After spiking Welsh big guns Jonny Clayton and Gerwyn Price in a pair of prime-time thrillers either side of Auld Lang Syne, Smith settled for a routine 6-3 semi-final demolition of James Wade (right) at Alexandra Palace.
In seven previous finals on TV, Smith has played like Superman allergic to kryptonite and lost the lot.
But after moving into a large farmhouse with adjoining paddocks, he has monster bills to pay on the mortgage – and playing like this will keep the debt collectors at bay.
What’s the story – mortgage glory?
Tonight, Smith goes for the £500,000 winner’s jackpot, the richest prize in darts, and after so many near misses in majors, he looks ready to lift the Sid Waddell Trophy at last.
He said: ”Even a year ago I’d given up, but we’d just bought a new house and the money I shell out every month on mortgages, I can’t afford to give darts away and lose matches.
“If I miss mortgage payments, I know how it works – we’re out on the streets. We are homeless. I knows it puts added pressure on me to win, but it’s keeping me focused.”
Wade, who is now a fourtime semi-final loser at Ally
Pally, played his best darts of the tournament – but few players, if any, can cope with Smith when he impales the treble 20 bed with his spears so relentlessly.
When Bully
Boy’s heavy artillery wasn’t taking out 16 maximum
180s, he picked off 45 percent on the doubles like a sniper.
While the Machine made a game of it after going 5-1 down and has no need to reproach himself, at 31 history now beckons for
Smith. In the 2019 final, he broke a knuckle punching a door backstage after missing crucial darts to put Michael van Gerwen under the pump. He will be keeping his hands to himself this time.
Bully Boy said: “Three years ago, I went into that final thinking I’d won it.
“I knew Michael was on ridiculous form at that time, but if you looked at the stats, I was winning everything. He beat me 7-3, but
I had darts to win six of the sets. If I’d had the belief I’ve got now, I might not have missed them.
“But that’s the past. The only thing I can change is the future. Hopefully, I can win and rectify 2019 and live a childhood dream.”
Smith (above), who averaged 100.98, added: “I knew James was going to push me and it was about keeping a cool head when he took those two sets.
“He knows how to win, how to grind out matches and luckily I kept my head even though I started to doubt myself once or twice.
“You are not gifted anything in life and I don’t agree with people who say I deserve to be in the final – I’ve worked hard for it.”